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The six brass letters of my piano's maker name KNIGHT have come off the mahogany fallboard. There is no trace of glue either on the letters or the fall so I'm wondering if the lettering was done onto wet varnish? There is only the slightest sign of where the letters were placed.

Over the years with the lettering being frequently dusted they have loosened and eventually one by one have come off. Unfortunately some were bent in the process and I have flattened them as best I could using an iron.

What would anyone recommend I now do to reinstate them? As the Knight company is no longer in existence I cannot obtain new letters from them. I have tried to find brass letters on the web without success. The originals are only around 1/64th inch thick.

Knights were known to regularly have this problem with their brass names on falls. They usually had the letters all joined up via an underline brass strip. Only today I have tuned a K10 with the same problem .... letters coming loose through being caught on dusters ! They eventually dropped the brass lettering and went over to gold transfers. The problem was that the brass names were merely stuck on rather than inlaid. A good sign writer should be able to replace the name in gold paint for you.

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Concert Tuner & Technician for the past 49 years in the United Kingdomand Member of the Pianoforte Tuners' Association (London)www.jphillipspianoservices.freeindex.co.uk : E-mail jophillips06@aol.com

Hello, any success to straighten the letters with a hot iron (at some point the metal may be a little soft)?

I guess that is where CA could be used, once the cavity is cleaned.

Or using lacquer to glue the letters again, plus a new coat on the whole part ( on need spraying equipment, and be lucky not to have a reaction from the original lacquer) To install decals, the original location have to me made flat, unless the brass letters where glued above the surface which is not usual I guess (?).

A friend have an old Steinway where the logo is made with auto adhesive plastic letters, it hurt his fingers when playing (hard edges) and it is awful. I will install a new logo in lacquer someday (when all the rest of the repairs will be finished)

Edited by Olek (05/29/1306:47 PM)

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Professional of the profession.

I wish to add some kind and sensitive phrase but nothing comes to mind.!

As an alternative to repairing or replacing the existing brass lettering, you might want to look into redoing it with a transfer decal instead. Try www.decalsunlimited.com they do have several Knight decals, so one of them should be right.

I'm actually trying to create logo letters from brass for my old Cable. I'll use a decal if that fails.